Trust
by Veronique Roux
Summary: Because a team isn't found, it's made. A series of oneshots portraying all of the significant moments that brought the Avengers closer together.
1. Chapter 1

hey guys(:

so, this is a collection of drabbles about little moments that brought the avengers closer together. I wrote one other fluffly little teamfic before this and it was a lot of fun, so i figured i'd give it another go. holy crap i can't type today. you can't imagine how much trouble i had writing this sentence -_-

I don't own anything

Enjoy!

* * *

They made dinner on Thursday nights.

Thursday was just a day that they very rarely had anything to get done, so instead of their usual frozen entrees or separate plans, they all got together and actually made something.

Steve and Bruce did most of the work, really. Clint took care of the salad. Natasha would sit on the counter, in between Clint and the stove, occasionally stirring something and assembling alcohols, because she usually made drinks. Bartending was a common skill to pick up as an assassin, oddly enough. Tony would lean against the doorframe, waiting for someone to give him instructions and watching Thor gleefully set the table.

Natasha didn't trust any of them, except perhaps Clint. She'd learned the hard way that it was better that way. Bruce walked around on tiptoes, thinking he shouldn't be there. Steve was sure that in this new, frightening world, no one needed Captain America. Tony felt like a failure, unworthy of everything he had. Thor would look around him and feel out of place, and not a day went by that he didn't think of home. And Clint waited patiently for them all to turn their backs on him.

Thursday dinners were an unspoken ritual, but a ritual all the same, and they could all use a bit of normalcy.

* * *

**Chapter 2 will be up soon(:**


	2. Chapter 2

So, this one is Natasha centric. Might wind up being more of a short oneshot this time around.

* * *

She pretty much always knew she cared about Clint. She didn't like it, not in the least. But it was an unfortunate truth, and in her eyes, life was full of those, so she didn't balk about it. Much.

But that was it. Everyone else she'd cared for was long gone, so she made a habit of not adding anyone else to that list. Very few people tried to get close to her, and she was more than fine with that. She preferred it.

But then Nick Fucking Fury had pulled together the Avengers and a group of misunderstood, boisterous, and most of all dysfunctional individuals forced their way into her life and very resolutely remained there.

So she'd built yet another wall around herself, and this one was so strong even Clint was having trouble with it, even though he was the only one who understood what she was doing. But what was messing with her mind was that they didn't give up after they tried a few times and it didn't fall down. That had only happened once before, and she still sometimes wondered if it had been a good or a bad thing.

They welcomed her with all the little things, the ones that mean the most in the long run.

She'd walk downstairs in the mornings and Thor would greet her with a warm smile despite the fact that she never returned it. Steve poured her a cup of coffee despite the fact that she never thanked him. Later in the day, when she'd wander into the lab, Bruce would talk to her despite the fact that she rarely responded. Tony would come up with gadgets for her despite the fact that she would never make it up to him.

And Clint... Clint did the most. He sat up with her when her nightmares woke up the entire tower. He knew when she needed him and when she needed to be left alone. He talked her out of her bad decisions and refused to abandon her, even if she screamed at him all the things she knew hurt the worst.

All of them would give their lives for her, despite the fact that each and every one of them were worth twenty of her.

She didn't want them to feel that they needed to do that. She didn't want any more red on her ledger.

But it was happening without her consent.

...

An explosion knocked her to her hands and knees, and it was less than a second before, she found a metallic hand helping her up. She ignored it and stood up with a slight groan, and Tony looked at her for a moment longer before taking off once more. She raised her gun once more, only to be distracted by the loud crash of metal on metal. She glanced up.

A missile from one of the HYDRA drones had hit him in the chest. It wasn't a dead-on blow, it was more the side of it that actually hit him. But it still sent him tumbling back into the lower level of what appeared to be a deserted apartment building (that entire street had been evacuated), taking Thor with him and bring the entire structure down on top of them.

Her breath caught in her throat.

With that realization, she turned back to her enemies with a renewed rage. It wasn't that she didn't know it would take more than that to take out Iron Man and Thor. It wasn't that the fact that they may have been injured that enraged her so.

It was the fact that it wasn't until they were climbing out of the wreckage that her heart slowed. It was the fact that it mattered.

It wasn't supposed to matter.

_They_ weren't supposed to matter.


	3. Chapter 3

hey guys :D

so, I've been busy *cough*tumblr*cough*

Hehe. important things, obviously.

so this is an all-out group fic :) the photoset i was working on was being a douche so I'm just going to finish this up

so, basically, this is right after the first mission that Natasha and Clint go on after the event of the movie. They live in the tower at this point.

this came out as a bit more natasha-centric than I'd previously meant for it to be. I'm sorry, guys, I love them all, but Natasha is just about my favorite. also it came out a bit more oneshot-y but whatever haha

I don't own Avengers :'(

Enjoy!

* * *

_"Oh, no, just stay there. The doctors said he'll be fine."_

She'd said that to Tony over the pone about seven hours ago, and that had been right after Dr. Newman had said Clint should wake up in about five or ten minutes. He was still lying there, pale, motionless, and now, possibly comatose.

_"It's just that we're having a little trouble picking up brain wave activity..."_

She hadn't let the others know yet. Why worry them? There probably wasn't even anything to worry about.

Natasha just kind of wished he'd wake up.

_"We're working as hard as we can, but we're...we're just not completely sure what's wrong. __Is there...maybe someone you'd like to call?"_  


But still...it would have been nice to have someone's hand to hold. She'd rather swallow a vat of acid than admit it, but she was _scared._

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she glanced out the door to make sure no one was coming before she answered.

"This is Romanoff."

_"_Hey, Natasha, this is Bruce... We were just getting a little worried, it's been a while. Are you having trouble getting checked out, or..._"_

"Oh, it's fine, just checking him over a bit." She cursed the way her voice cracked. "Uh...yeah, I gotta go. Tell the others I said hi."

She hung up before he could reply and turned her phone off, shoving it in her purse.

Natasha rested her elbows on the bed, plunking her chin down in her palms.

He'd taken a gunshot in the thigh, which was only really dangerous from the blood loss, and then a heavy hit to the head. It had been hardly two month since they'd taken Loki down back in New York, and Natasha was still sore from the effects. Clint was distracted and slightly stiff. Fury had called them out too soon, and Clint was now paying the price, thanks to a low-life follower of a dangerously important Japanese drug dealer.

A burst of anger flashed through her. The sound of the thug's neck breaking as she'd snapped his head to the side echoed in her ears, and she slowly calmed. But then it started to sound like the gunshot and she glanced at her unconscious partner's ashen face.

Natasha cautiously reached out and gripped his calloused hand. Her fingers looked so dainty, creamy white and petite, but she knew the horrors they'd inflicted. For a moment, they flashed dripping and bloody before her, and she squeezed her eyes shut for just a moment and they returned to normal.

But there was just a bit of blood still under her fingernails. She squeezed Clint's hand in a way that, had he been awake, would have been painfully tight.

Her voice came out as a raspy whisper. "Why won't you just _wake up already_, Barton?"

Now, had this been a movie, Clint's eyes would've opened right then and there, and she was ashamed to admit that she held her breath for half a second and waited, just waited, but this was real life, as she knew all too well.

That didn't mean she didn't feel a little bit worse when he still stayed like that, lying there as lively as death.

Like a statue.

"Na...Natasha?"

She almost jumped. Perhaps she would've, but she hadn't been truly startled in years, and she wasn't about to start now.

"Oh...", she tried to sound light-hearted but she mostly just seemed tired. Like she'd been drained over and over without fully recharging in between. "You guys came..."

Thor had to duck just a little bit to get through the door.

"This is a crappy hospital," Tony muttered. Bruce glared at him.

"Not _now_, Tony."

"Well, I'm just sayi-"

"_Tony_."

He quieted after a moment.

"So...", Steve asked quietly, "Is he going to be alright?"

She glanced at him. "Well, his doctor originally said he'd be awake...," she checked her watch, "...about eight hours ago, and they asked me to call his family. Not that he has any, but I'm pretty sure that's not a good sign," she replied cynically.

Steve glanced at the ground. "Sorry."

There was a long moment of silence in which no one moved, no one hardly breathed, but then Tony pulled a chair up next to her with a screech of metal on tile, and he gripped her hand. In that moment, differences could be pushed aside and disregarded. They just didn't measure up.

Following his example, the others all took seats around Clint's bed.

And she had to admit, although it wasn't perfect, not by a long shot...she did feel a little bit better.


	4. Chapter 4

hey everyone :D

so, thanks so much to everyone who reviewed! you guys are why I do it :DD and also, in reply to discordchick, I do plan on doing a continuation of the last one, but i think that'll be the next one or so, because if I don't get this one out right now I'm going to forget about it

I've actually taken to starting these on binder paper during school lol and whenever anyone comes up behind me I turn the paper over and pretend to be doodling. Not that that's much better, but at least no one will read my drawings aloud to the rest of the class.

Oh, yeah, these kind of skip around in time periods haha this one is definitely at least a good few months after the last one. possibly in a different universe...in which Hawkeye lives...lol jk :D

Or am I? ;)

I don't own Avengers. :(I want to cry just saying that:)

Enjoy!

* * *

"Leaving in ten, Nat, you ready?" Clint skipped the last step, landing on the hardwood with a loud thump. His bow was in one hand, and a black overnight bag was in the other.

Tony muted the TV, resulting in a cry of protest from Thor, which Tony brushed off after a moment. "Where're you going?"

Natasha hurried down the stairs, brushing her hair out of her eyes. She was dressed in her SHIELD uniform, which Tony hadn't realized until now had slowly become uncharacteristic. Perhaps she was relaxing after all. Similarly to Clint, she was well-armed and had an identical bag slung over her shoulder.

"New mission. Got the call a few nights ago. Forgot to mention it, sorry." Natasha closed the garage door behind her, but Tony followed after a moment.

"Again?"

A SHIELD SUV was waiting on the curb. Natasha was tossing Clint her bag, which he caught with a practiced ease. This was something they'd done innumerable times before.

Clint shrugged at him. "It's kind of our job, Stark."

Tony didn't go back inside until the car was out of sight.

Steve gave him a quizzical look. "What was that all about?"

He just shrugged.

* * *

When they got back a week later, Natasha stumbled in an expensive looking black dress, haunted eyes, and hair matted with blood. Clint still wore a ripped tuxedo, and the once-white shirt was specked with red. His quiver was empty, and his bow looked broken.

They disappeared onto their respective floors (yes, _floors_), leaving silence in their wake, and not reappearing until morning.

And in the morning, in their typical Natasha-and-Clint fashion, they acted as if it hadn't happened. Bottled it all up inside and ignored it.

But that just couldn't be allowed.

"So...," Tony began as he sat down with a cup of coffee, "Where've you been?"

Natasha gave him a cool glance and looked at Clint, who gave a noncommittal shrug.

Tony exchanged a look with Steve. "What happened?"

At this, the assassins seemed to have a brief mental conversation before Natasha replied stoically, "Had a few slip-ups, but we're fine."

The others shared an odd look and with renewed determination, they looked towards the assassins.

"It's just," Bruce started hesitantly, "we don't really think...you should still have to be..." He gave up and turned his eyes to the table.

Clint's eyebrow arched. "What? Working for SHIELD?"

"Well, yes..."

Steve sighed. "I can't help but think that you don't exactly _enjoy __it_, and we just don't like that you put yourselves in harm's way so often."

Natasha scoffed. "Because being here is just like sitting in a padded room-"

Tony cut in. "No one's trying to say that this is a walk in the park, all he means is that when you're here at least you've got all of us to watch your back, alright?"

"We've been watching _each other's _backs for longer than you've even known who we were, Stark, so-"

"That doesn't make it better!"

And suddenly the room was a huge jumble of arguing and yelling, and breakfast lay forgotten on the table.

Thor's voice rose above all the others. "We are _friends_ here! Cease the madness!"

"The only 'madness' that needs to 'cease' is everything that's coming out of this jackass's mou-"

"Widow, Stark has a point," Thor cut her off mid-word, "Perhaps you should not simply refute everything before you hear it."

"I'm hearing everything, Thor, we both are," Clint replied hotly.

"You are listening, archer, but I don't think you are hearing. We are worried for you. That is all, so you needn't react so strongly."

Clint crossed his arms, looking away. "Don't see why you even care anyway," he muttered.

"Clint," Steve glared, "We care because we're a _team_, and if one of us is down, we all are."

There was a moment of silence, and then Natasha stood up. "We'll think about it." Both of them swept out of the room.

Steve probably wouldn't realize it until later, but he'd basically just pointed the Hulk at one of the many walls the two had built up and told him to smash.

They weren't used to being cared for.


End file.
